UPROXX’s 10 Best TV Shows Of 2014

A brief selection of quality TV shows that JUST missed being included in UPROXX top ten list for 2014: Louie, The Americans, Rectify, The Good Wife, Shameless, Veep, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Silicon Valley. Hell, that could be someone’s seven favorite shows and you’d think, “Good job, person with good taste.” Unfortunately, and with all due respect to Jeremy Renner holding a cat, they didn’t make it — these 10 did, based on a 1-10 voting scale, i.e. if True Detective was a writer’s #1, it got 10 points, etc. Got it?

In seven episodes representing the first half of Mad Men’s final season, Matthew Weiner continued to churn out the smartest, densest, most layered show on television, perfectly melding late ’60s politics and culture to some of the most complicated characters in any medium. Don Draper worked toward redemption, Peggy acknowledged her spiritual soul mate in Don, and Ginsberg? Well, Ginsberg lost a nipple in one of the most darkly comic episodes of 2014. In the end, everything came together with touching perfection: Don quietly ended his relationship with Megan; the year’s most compelling new villain, Lou Avery, got his comeuppance; Sterling Cooper merged with McCann Erickson; and Bert Cooper got to watch the moon landing before he passed away. “Bravo!” In this season of Mad Men Don “did the work,” and in doing so, he finally realized that it’s not about the money. As Bert sings in the final scene of the half-season: “The best things in life are free.” — Dustin Rowles

“So, John, this news show you’re making… it’s gonna be on every day, right? You know, to take advantage of the short news cycles these days?”

“Nope. Once a week.”

“Oh… but you’re gonna do lots of short flashy bits on sexy much-discussed news topics to take advantage of the 18-35 demo’s disappearing attention spans and love of micro news outlets like Twitter. That’s obvious.”

“Nope. I’m gonna do huge commercial-free deep dives into topics like payday loans and the Miss America pageant’s charitable giving flim flam, and they’re gonna take up half the show, and people are going to love them.”

“They are?”

“They are.”

“O… kay. So you’re gonna put little teasers of the big segments on YouTube to entice people to subscribe to HBO to see the unabridged version, yes?”

I could say a lot about Review, about how early-season standalone episodes evolved into a tragicomic arc abut a man’s descent into madness, or Andy Daly and Jessica St. Clair’s stellar performances as the endlessly positive Forrest MacNeil and sympathetic Suzanne MacNeil, or why I’m never going to look at a pancake the same way, or literally LOL’ing at what happens to Fred Willard in the space episode, or the ingenious framing device of using a show-within-a-show to capture Forrest’s life experiences, or the existential meaning behind “there all is aching.”

There’s never been a bad episode of Bob’s Burgers. Think about that. That’s 73 episodes of excellence, with no signs of slowing down. Every time Linda sings, or Tina moans, or Bob talks to an intimate object, or Louise yells at Gene, it’s still funny. But what made season four and what’s making season five feel so fresh is the expansion of the show’s universe. The majority of the plots still take place in and around Ocean Avenue, but lately, there’s been more Teddy. Tammy, too. And Zeke. And Big Bob. And my personal favorite, Regular-Sized Rudy. It’s Springfield, minus a monorail but with a “wharf horse.” Bob’s Burgers now is the closest thing we have to The Simpsons then, and don’t you four cheddar ’bout it. — Josh Kurp

I can’t really say that season four of Game of Thrones was any better or worse than the three previous seasons, since all of the previous seasons story lines always just kind of just mush together for me — but I can definitely say that it continued to be be solid as ever. Highlights of season four included the greatly anticipated purple wedding and oh so satisfying death of Joffrey, who died with a bratty look of disbelief on his face, to the introduction of a new fan-favorite character who was soon killed off in the most horrifying and tragic way possible, to the final showdown between the Wildlings and Night’s Watch. Oh, and not to mention the other satisfying death of the evil Tywin finally meeting his demise on the toilet, at the hands of his perpetually abused son. Although it could have used more dragons (there will never be enough dragons), it was overall a hell of an entertaining season, that’s for damn sure. — Stacey Ritzen

If you had told me “Ava goes to a women’s prison” would be the weakest part of a season of anything I would have told you to get the fuck out of my house and to toss me those tissues on the way out the door.

It doesn’t. Fargo is the only thing here that I vehemently disagree with, (I’ve never seen ‘Broad City’); I lost interest 3 episodes in, forced myself to watch a couple more, then just stopped. Different strokes for different folks and all but there’s no way, in this universe, that True Detective was not the better show this year.

Personally I think it does. Fargo > True Detective for me. I think there was way too much hype for TD and that cause people to lose their minds over it.
Don’t get me wrong, it was still a great show/mini-series, I just enjoyed Fargo much more.

Let’s all admit we’re trying to compare apples and oranges here. There’s no objective way to say one is better than the other: I followed TD as it aired and it was a spectacular ride, but I think at the end of the day I enjoyed Fargo more.

True Detective followed on the heals of the end of Breaking Bad and Mad Men’s weird final split season. I was wondering what would fill the void. TD showed that I had nothing to worry about and then came The Knick. I liked Fargo but it didn’t hook me like TD, where half of each episode had me picking my jaw off the floor.

I don’t think Fargo really belongs with any of those other shows, frankly. It wasn’t bad by any measure, but more than a Coen Brothers movie, it reminded me of Breaking Bad-lite. There were great performances (one of its strongest factors) but with all of its pontificating of morality and it’s self-indulgent narrative twist-yness, it misses the mark, for me. Its not that I wasn’t having fun but there was just this sense of well-trodden ground, in the same way that following Tarantino’s break-out there were all these arthouse genre crime pictures, and there would be one or two that would rise above the dreck that were pretty good, but they would still be on the heels of Pulp Fiction. At the end of the day, it just feels like down to its structure, Fargo was a bunch of really awesome tropes reheated and mixed around a bit, with no core of originally to jump it to greatness, and the narrative and blocking and themes seem so transcribed and almost gaudy that you can kinda of see how much control the writer thinks he has on the audience (and I seem to be in the minority so who am I to say he doesn’t) that it reads a bit too indulgent for its own good.

@Marc88
admit it, you watched the whole season and then just wanted to complain about it.. it was great, admit it. quit whining. Fargo deserves to be on the list.

@Van Buren Boy
OITNB stopped being original after the first 2-3 episodes.. it was a good idea, but i found the show as a whole to be a bit trite and it got worse in the second season.
we may have seen Fargo the movie – but the show is a new take and different approach to a better story.

Yeah Season 5 really should’ve been on here. I’m going through it again and it’s just soo much goddamn fun I don’t see how it couldn’t be on this list. I guess it’s just cause it isn’t new like Broad City or You’re the Worst.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked “You’re the Worst.” Watched it through twice and I’m going to keep watching it. But I honestly thought from all the talk about it and how it ranks so high in peoples minds that it was going to be something special.

It’s funny, and fun, but they set out seemingly to break the mold of romantic comedy bullshit that is boring and formulaic. That’s what I tuned in for and then they proceeded to dredge up every tired trope they could including what to call each other (labels argument) and whether or not the guy should give the girl a key to his place.

So yeah funny show, that’s completely predictable and doesn’t change the genre at all and instead puts people of my generation in as the main characters. Not all that original.

1) Hannibal – Such a great season. Fast and intense.
2) Fargo – Really good. I loved it from the first episode.
3) The Americans – Still got three episode to go in season 2 but damn there are some powerful moments in it.
4) Justified – a weaker season but I just re-watched the season and it was much better than i remembered. There was so much negativity when it was airing that it kind of warped my perception of it.
5) You’re the Worst – the biggest surprise of the year.

The Knick is getting no love ANYWHERE on the Internet and it pisses me off because it was the best new show of the year, and possibly the best overall one too (although I think True Detective has an edge on it, even though there’s a dumb backlash against it).

Review is a hilarious show on Comedy Central. Andrew Daly is life critic Forrest McNeil. Just watch the first episode and if you don’t laugh hysterically you are soulless. This is coming from a huge Archer fan as well.

Can’t put Fargo #1 because of everything after the “One Year Later.” After the time jump, the show just completely fell apart. Nothing anyone did made any sense and the last episode just felt forced on too many levels.

It’s still an awesome season of television, but the ending brings it down a notch. I didn’t overhype the TD ending for myself, so I loved it and I keep that at #1. Just my 2 cents.

And, it is too bad Justified had a bad season. Hopefully, this final season will make up for everything.

God damn, this was a solid year for TV. Don’t really have anything to add, but one of the reasons why I loved True Detective so much is I live in the general area where the story takes place, that stretch of freeway between Houston and New Orleans. What really made me love the show is the attention to detailed they payed to the setting. Most shows set in Louisiana just get fucking lazy and fall back on the New Orleans tropes of STREET CARS and GUMBO and ALLIGATORS, but True Detective never played into that. LIke, one of my favorite parts was when they were outside of a Vietnamese pho place getting something to eat. This area is known for food, but mostly for the Cajun kind. There is actually a really sizable Vietnamese population in the area and a bunch of great Asian places to grab food. Just seeing that pho place gave that show a sense of nuance that few are able to grab onto.

You’d put Orange is the New Black that high? I barely made it through the first season and I want to cry thinking about watching Season 2. After seeing how bad he fucked up Weeds and how fast it fell, didn’t think there was any chance for Orange.